Page:T.M. Royal Highness.djvu/336

320 you. And in this connexion I beg your Royal Highness to allow me to revert to your more personal case."

Herr von Knobelsdorff waited till Klaus Heinrich had made a sign of consent with his hand, and then went on: "If this affair is to have any future, it is desirable that it should now advance a step in its development. It is stagnating, it remains as formless and prospectless as the mist outside. That's intolerable. We must give it form, must thicken it out, must mark its outlines more clearly before the eyes of the world."

"Quite so! quite so! Give it form &hellip; thicken it out.&hellip; That's it. That's absolutely necessary," agreed Klaus Heinrich, so much excited that he left the sofa and began to walk up and down the room. "But how? For heaven's sake, Excellency, tell me how?"

"The next external step," said Herr von Knobelsdorff, and remained sitting—so unusual was the occasion—"must be this, that the Spoelmanns be seen at Court."

Klaus Heinrich stopped still.

"No," he said, "never, if I know Mr. Spoelmann, will be let himself be persuaded to go to Court."

"Which," answered Herr von Knobelsdorff, "doesn't prevent his daughter from doing us this pleasure. The Court Ball's not so very far off; it rests with you, Royal Highness, to induce Miss Spoelmann to take part in it. Her companion is a countess &hellip; a peculiar one, perhaps, but a countess, and that helps things. When I assure your Royal Highness that the Court will not fail to make things easy, I am speaking with the approbation of the Chief Master of the Ceremonies, Herr von Bühl zu Bühl."

The conversation now turned for three-quarters of an hour on questions of precedence, and the ceremonial conditions under which the presentation must be carried out. The distribution of cards was always left to Princess Catherine's Mistress of the Robes, a widowed Countess